Our idea stemmed from seeing numerous holiday toiletries packaging left in our accommodations and bin stores-shampoos, baby lotions, shower gels.....time and time again. We decided to learn a little more around how we could put these to better use.
We already had a great relationship with MyGroup https://mygroupltd.com/mygroup-hull, who can recycle the un-recyclables-they shared with us that much of this packaging can not be recycled through usual household collections.
So we got started. We created some collection stands with a design company Pickle, local to our Cornish parks. These went in to our reception areas for the start of the 2022 season. We also put one in to a local primary school in Newquay and introduced this with an educational sessions in partnership with Beach Guardian https://www.beachguardian.org/ . Pupils learned about plastic pollution and how we can keep our beaches clean as well as diverting waste from landfill. We asked the school to contribute their toiletries packaging from home too and added these to our Cornish parks' collections.
Guests, pupils, teachers and team contributed to 8.44kg being uplifted by MyGroup early 2023.
These were then soon transformed in to a mud kitchen which was presented to the school in early May. The pupils loved being able to see and feel the small flecks of colour from their packaging and understanding this circular story that they all contributed to. - hopefully inspiring future conservationists.